Directing
Community Rating
6.1
TMDB estimate
Born
June 12, 1907
Died
October 14, 1987 (age 80)
Born in
Frieth, Buckinghamshire, England
Basil Wright - was a documentary filmmaker, film historian, film critic and teacher. During World War II, Wright worked only as a producer, first at John Grierson's Film Centre before joining The Crown Film Unit between 1945 and 1946 as producer-in-charge. Among the best known films he produced for Crown are Humphrey Jennings' A Diary for Timothy (1946) and A Defeated People (1946) and Instruments of the Orchestra (1946) featuring Benjamin Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.[1] Returning to direction in the early 1950s, his films included Waters of Time (1951) made for the Festival of Britain, World Without End (1953) directed with Paul Rotha for UNESCO and Greece: The Immortal Land (1958) in collaboration with his friend the artist Michael Ayrton. Writing throughout the 30s and 40s, Basil Wright had contributed to the theoretical development of documentary in the movement's journals Cinema Quarterly, World Film News and Documentary Newsletter. He was the film critic for The Spectator after Graham Greene left. Wright was a regular contributor to the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound during the 1940s and '50s. He published a small book: The Uses of Film (1948) and his personal (extensive) history of cinema The Long View (1974). He taught at the University of Southern California (1962 and 1968), The National Film and Television School in London (1971–73) and Temple University in Philadelphia (1977–78). He was Governor of the British Film Institute, a fellow of the British Film Academy and President of the International Association of Documentary Filmmakers. In his films Wright combined an ability to look closely and carefully at a subject with a poetic and often experimental approach to editing and sound. In Britain he is commemorated with a film prize awarded biennially by the Royal Anthropological Institute.
Omnibus - Cuckoo: A Celebration of Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy
as Self
1974

Grierson
as Self
1973
The Immortal Land
as Director, Producer
1958

One Wish Too Many
as Producer
1956
The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci
as Producer
1953
World Without End
as Director
1953
Waters of Time
as Director
1951

It Might Be You
as Producer
1946

A Defeated People
as Producer
1946

A Diary for Timothy
as Producer
1945

The Channel Islands 1940-1945
as Producer
1945
Neuro Psychiatry 1943
as Producer
1943
London Scrapbook
as Producer
1942

This Is Colour
as Producer
1942
The Green Girdle
as Producer
1941

London Can Take It!
as Associate Producer
1940

Men of Africa
as Producer
1940

The Rape of Czechoslovakia
as Writer
1939

The Face of Scotland
as Director
1938

Advance Democracy!
as Producer
1938